


Promiscuous

by awbucks



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Character Study, Gay, Gay Bucky Barnes, Gen, LGBTQ history, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Q slur, gay!Bucky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-01
Updated: 2018-05-01
Packaged: 2019-04-30 23:00:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14507355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awbucks/pseuds/awbucks
Summary: Piece on Bucky Barnes' sexuality in the 1930's.





	Promiscuous

**Author's Note:**

> Just something I wrote once and figured I should share it

Bucky Barnes wasn’t so much a ladies’ man as he was promiscuous. Which is odd, considering that he was the man and really, as a supposedly handsome, working seventeen (nearly eighteen) year old, he ought to have found a dame to take home to his folks. At least have a steady partner when he was out dancing. Maybe he was just easy to cheat with. Or maybe they just knew he could throw a punch need be. Or maybe, and this was the one Bucky feared, was that those dames could see right through him. Right under his shirt that they unbuttoned with lacquered nails and behind his smirk that made them stupid. 

Saw that he was just a pansy too scared to man up and settle down. That he lived with his best friend yes to split rent but also because he was the only one who knew and wouldn’t care if Bucky came back with another man’s cologne mixing with his. 

So that’s why he was promiscuous, because he had no one to cheat on, and was the one ladies cheated with. Gals stuck with some bum their old man set them up with liked some fun, no strings attached. Even if they’d never admit it and hide behind their boyfriends, pretending to be loyal when they’d really screwed up and down the block. 

Bucky would occasionally run into some of those dames’ fellas too, which always was strange. He’d never sleep with them, that would be too complicated, but he’d see them bumming around Brooklyn too late, and Harlem, smoking cigarettes against the dark of night, waiting for the Underworld to appear. For the queens to put on their crowns and for the fairies to give out butterfly kisses.

Bucky wasn’t sure where he fit in with all that. While he didn’t much mind how he looked with rouge or lace, he wasn’t showy or frilly enough to be a queen. And he was too big and brash to be a fairy. Looked more like one of those closeted dock workers (which he was, technically, but Bucky didn’t consider himself *one* of them) coming down for a drink and a queer with nothing to lose to go down on him. In those situations, Bucky was that queer. 

Steve never dropped himself to that level.

On the outside, people probably thought Stevie was a fairy type. Small, willowy with a pretty mouth, he fit the stereotype physically, but damn he was anything but. Barely flirted- barely could flirt- Steve would approach who he found desirable, and opened the dialogue. Bucky wasn’t so brave. He still blushed when men with caramel eyes winked from across the bar and went weak kneed when a sailor on leave offered his bed. 

Because, to be blunt, Bucky was still a boy in a man’s world. Sure, he’d known he liked the way fellas walked and talked and smiled since he knew what a prince charmin’ was, but that didn’t mean he was any good at expressing that. It was just so much easier to go dancing with a girl and buy her a soda on their way home. It was so simple to kiss a dame and hold her by the waist. There was no heat in the pit of his stomach and there was no trepidation caught in his throat. 

In a way, Bucky supposed it was a blessing to have no heat for the fairer sex. Made the whole...courting thing easier on his end. Could make sure the girl was comfortable and happy and not have to worry about his own wandering mind. 

Men had the opposite effect on him. 

The only time Bucky wasn’t on edge was when some fella was buying him a drink or pulling him closer. That was another reason Bucky used that feminine term. Down in those bars he was the most delicate thing to those men. He was the lady in those situations. Bucky had spent the better half of his growing years steeped in the hunger that was the Great Depression, and so while things were begining to look up in his house, he still was slim and sallow-little wrists and the smooth lines of bone at his collar and hips and ribs. He was a little lamb to those men who hadn’t seen a fair face or an easy day since 1929. 

Strong from the docks but slight from the circumstance, Bucky was healthy enough to be desirable and poor enough for it not to show too much. 

Not that other things didn’t show. His nose, for instance. Its crookedness and how it was too big for his face. And the way his mama dressed and didn’t go to church with them. Down here, sure, they cared about the curves of his body and the slight of his profile, but at least they didn’t cut him where it hurt too bad. 

And besides, one day maybe, things would be better. And Bucky could find a guy to be his and they could get married in the backyard. Becca would make the cake, and Stevie the decorations. He’d cut them out of crinkly paper and stand up on a chair to hang them. He’d be nervous, but his fella would be too. Maybe one day, things would be like that. Maybe one day, Bucky wouldn’t be promiscuous no more and be in love instead.

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos, comments, you know the drill


End file.
